To coincide withan event today in Brussels, focused on how the Internet is driving economic growth and new jobs across the European Union, Google has launched a website providing insight into the economic impact of the Internet.

Google has launched a new website, Value of the Web, to provide insight into the economic impact of the Internet.

Our mission is to compile a repository of literature on the value and prospects of an open Internet and how it can be leveraged to create a sustainable future.

Available in English, French, German, Russian and Spanish it currently has 19 studies, mostly ones commissioned by Google.

Two general article look at the impact of search in economic terms from the McKinsey Group while another on the value of cloud computing in Europe is from an Italian economist, Federico Etro.

There are 17 regional reports addressing the topic of the Internet’s contribution to GDP in different countries. Ones from the Boston Consulting Group and look at how the Internet is transforming the economies of the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia and Hong Kong. Similar studies on France and Israel come from McKinsey while Deloitte covers Indonesia and Australia. The report on Japan is by the Nomura Research Institute and the one on Korea is from Sogang University.

Even though industrial metrics like GDP can’t fully capture the Web’s contributions to our information society, these reports represent the best efforts so far to quantify the Internet’s contributions to the economy and society. The new website will highlight the broad range of value generated by the internet, including in areas such as the contribution of the firms who provide the essential hardware and software to power the Internet and the jobs.

So while the value of traditional industry declines do these studies suggest that the Internet may be the source of the new jobs and expanding opportunities that are needed to rekindle our economies?